300 Men March Shares Insights with Anti-Extremist Groups from South Asia

It turns out that Baltimore’s 300 Men March, a grassroots organization dedicated to ending community violence of all kinds, had plenty to teach groups from South Asia who are looking for ways to keep their own citizens away from violent extremism.

As Baltimore Sun‘s Kevin Rector reports, 300 Men March founder Munir Bahar — along with co-founder City Councilman Brandon Scott and representatives from the Baltimore Police Department — fielded questions from diplomats and activists from nine different countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal in Pigtown on Thursday.

300 Men March, founded in 2013, uses a multi-pronged approach to ending violence that includes direct intervention as well as attention-getting and community building actions, such as their grueling march from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. in August.

Rector reported that the foreign visitors found much of it relevant to their own issues, whether that’s keeping “well-to-do educated [Pakistani] youth” from backing al-Qaida and ISIS or helping Nepali youth with criminal records find employment. One activist suggested that the Baltimore group’s model could “be replicated in areas that are conflict-prone.”